February Photos

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Journal: A Beautiful (but Hair-Raising) Trip to Colorado

Last Monday, once again, my online quilting groups could not send or receive posts.  One of the ‘Is It Down’ websites said the group sites were up; another said they were down.  The ‘outage’ didn’t appear to be as widespread as the previous week.  Some groups were working all right; others were not.  The trouble with those ‘Is It Down’ sites is that their ‘ping’ functions only check the main homepage, and since group homepages were indeed up, they generally reported that all was well.  But if one scrolls down to the comment section, one will find that many, many people are complaining about the Yahoo groups being unable to send or receive messages.  Yahoo has definitely been having trouble herding their gremlins into a semblance of order lately. 
I finally found a Yahoo forum where a few possibly clueless Yahoo techs bumble about, seeing what there is to see (when they aren’t napping), so I left my own note amongst all the others, adding one more vote to the matter.
On one comment column, someone who signs his name as a professor of one sort or another from what he obviously considers a high-ka-flootin’ college wrote a reply to my comment:  “Please put a date on your comment!”
I looked at his remark for a moment, considering ignoring the pompous dumb-dumb, then decided, Nah, let’s call him down in front of the entire audience.  So I wrote a reply:  “There is a timestamp under each comment.”
I wanted to add, “Duh!” but my Mama would have frowned on that – and besides, sometimes one is more effective when one is merely factual.  Let the audience think to themselves, “Duh!”  Audiences are capable.  Heh
It wasn’t until Thanksgiving Day that messages began coming through the groups again.
Tuesday, I watered the houseplants – the cyclamen and African violets are in bloom – and washed clothes.  Here’s Teensy, helping me.
I edited the pictures I’d taken of flowers, birds, and cat, then went to put the borders on the Baskets of Lilies quilt and get the rest of the appliqué flowers pressed in place.
Supper that evening was Mexican pizza, cottage cheese and/or yogurt... with Thompson grapes for dessert.  Afterwards, I trotted back to the sewing room.
After I commented in last week’s letter that fabric for a king-sized quilt can cost several hundred dollars, a non-quilting lady wanted to know if the fabric for every quilt I made cost that much, and if so, how in the world did I keep quilting?
I told her that I carefully save all my scraps, and many quilts I make cost practically nothing.  Well, of course they cost something... but I don’t spend any new money, if that makes sense.  For instance, fabric I bought to make my sister and brother-in-law a king-sized quilt cost $350 (I got some of it on sale).  But I cut very carefully ... saved every piece that might possibly come in handy... and a couple of years later, I made us – Larry and me – a quilt with the leftovers, having only to buy a small amount of coordinating fabric.
I spent $400 on fabric for the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt... but I had a lot of fabric left over, and have used it on many of the quilts I’ve made since.  My stash isn’t nearly as big as most quilting ladies’ stash is. 
When it’s time to make Jeremy and Lydia’s quilt (they’re next in the roster!), I’ll have to go buy all new fabric.  It’s fun to do, going to the quilting shop, and picking out all the fabric I want.  I’ll be saving for it!
One time a lady was going on and on (and on) about a wall hanging she’d made.  Now, granted, it was lovely, and she’d won a ribbon at the county fair for it.  But when she emoted, “—and it took me 45 hours to make!” I saw a number of heads turn and look at her.  Some of those people had created works of art that took them several years to make – 500-2,000 hours.  The lady, seeing all those heads swiveling her way, preened.  She was so sure that nobody on the face of the earth had ever spent so much time on a quilt, or... any project, for that matter. 
Wednesday morning, I filled the bird feeders.  For a month or so in the late fall, we see very few birds... and then they come flocking back in droves.  I think for a while they find all the seeds they need in nearby fields and pastureland, and then when that source dwindles (or gets covered with snow), they come flitting back to our feeders.  In one short span alone, I saw house finches, goldfinches, English sparrows, cardinals, juncos, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, and Eurasian ring-necked doves.
That afternoon, there was a bad accident on Highway 81 just north of our house.  A pickup ran into the back of a truck that hauls feed to farms.  The auger that they use to unload the feed sits on the right side of the truck and sticks out the back a little bit – and the pickup wound up partially wedged under and against the truck, and hanging on that auger, which went through the driver’s side of the pickup.  Just looking at it, it was hard to believe the driver could have survived, but he did.
Turns out, he’d been trying to pick something up off the floor.  The fact that he was leaning down and over probably saved his life, since the driver’s side got smooshed... but it would’ve been even better if he’d not have been scrambling around on the floor and not noticing that a truck was stopping in front of him.
I got a few more petals appliquéd on the Baskets of Lilies quilt.  Then I reluctantly stopped with the appliquéing, spread the quilt out over my frame so it wouldn’t get hopelessly rumpled before I got back to it, and set about packing our bags. 
I packed everything I could pack until the next day (we still needed to use things like shampoo, conditioner, comb, brush, toothpaste, etc.).  We were going to leave for southeastern Colorado immediately after our Thanksgiving dinner at church, going to a place near Dove Creek, Colorado, which is about 900 miles from our house seven miles west of Columbus, Nebraska.  We planned to pick up a tractor Larry had purchased from the online auction, Big Iron.  It’s a four-wheel-drive 1980 Massey Ferguson, exactly what he’s been needing for the haying he does at Teddy’s place, where there is a natural spring that sometimes makes the place boggy, causing his other tractor to get all mired down.
Most anybody selling that tractor on flatland would’ve been able to get $8,000 for it.  We paid only $4,000.  The owner told Larry that several potential buyers had backed out on account of the tractor’s mountainous, remote location.
The tractor weighs about the same or a little more than his pickup.  Larry believed his truck would go over the mountain passes just fine, because it has 4.10 gears.  And it would’ve, if...  But let’s not get ahead of our story.
I looked at AccuWeather, and saw that the weather in the Colorado High Country would be nicer than it was here in Nebraska, for the next week.  Still a little chilly in the higher altitudes, where we would be, mostly.
If everything ran true to form, our trip would undoubtedly call down a blizzard, and we’d be traveling over the Great Divide, towing a heavy trailer loaded with a tractor, on snow and ice.  Why, we can cause deluges in the middle of deserts, if we happen to set up a tent somewhere, even though they haven’t had rain in that location for a decade.  (The locals should pay us.)  High wind gusts will travel great numbers of miles to find us in campgrounds, just for the evil glee of rocking our camper.
Hannah would take care of the cats.  Tiger has diet food in his dispenser... and Teensy has regular food.  When I’m not here, I put Teensy’s bowl up on the counter where he can get to it, but Tiger (supposedly) can’t.  Tiger will eat Teensy’s dry food if it gets left on the floor; he obviously doesn’t like diet food any better than most of us.  heh 
I’ve also been giving Teensy a can of soft cat food each day, half at a time.  Poor kitty needs to be fattened up a bit.
I posted some pictures that night:

Thursday morning found me getting ready for our church dinner.  Larry had vanished.  He was probably getting the trailer ready for our trip to Colorado, but he’d forgotten his phone, so there was no way to find out.
Amazingly, he got home in time to get ready – and we even arrived a couple of minutes early for the service!  We had a short service at 11:00 a.m., with lots of music from our orchestra and band.  Bobby wrote the music for and led the band.  After some congregational singing, my nephew Robert read some verses and a bit of the story about the Pilgrims (amazing to read of the hardships they went through), and then we went to the Fellowship Hall for dinner.
Afterwards, I took a few pictures of this one and that one.  I found Norma talking with Lydia, who was holding Baby Malinda.  I talked to the baby... and the sweet little dear as good as asked me to hold her, leaning toward me and looking all dreamy-eyed... so I handed Hannah my camera, and Lydia handed the baby to me.  Little Malinda snuggled all up and started the little cooing and humming she does when she’s considering falling asleep.   Her Mama used to do the very same thing.  😊
I keep telling my girls, “If Baby says she has a headache, please remove her head tourniquet!”  haha  They assure me that the bands are very, very soft.  And indeed, Baby Malinda’s slid easily right off her head and wound up hanging from one of my fingers when I cuddled her up against my cheek. 
Home again, we got the final few things ready to go.  I stacked up the pillows and blankets I always take along, went into the bedroom to get more things, and came back out to find that Teensy had knocked the top pillow off the stack, and was nicely nestled atop it!
Since it was too late to save the pillowcase now, I let the anxious feline stay there.  He was obviously trying various ploys to foil our impending departure.
As soon as he removed himself, I put a new pillowcase on my pillow and hauled it out to the pickup.  I came back in to find Teensy perched right on my computer case!  When I walked in the door, he squinted at me and stretched out all across the top of the bag, paws outstretched to the very edge, claws extended and curled around the piping.
He planned to hang onto that thing for dear life!
We left home about 5:30 p.m. and headed into a gorgeous sunset, planning to drive as far as we could.  I wished I could’ve stopped somewhere on a hillside... put my big lens on... settled the camera on the tripod...  Instead, I had to take the shots whilst bouncing and jouncing down the road in the truck.  🙃
An hour later, we narrowly missed a dead deer smack-dab in the middle of the highway, poor thing.
We went through Grand Island and headed south toward Hastings – and were immediately on the very roughest road known to man.  It’s been that way for years.  Decades, really.  Why don’t we ever learn?!  There are other routes, for pity’s sake.
I was trying to answer some email, but could barely type because the bouncing.  Here, I’ll show you:  Tehds bouncing dffmakes my fi;hngers hit all sortsw of whstrsange letterjs inadzxcvertenmjtlyw;a...  fsdf;
See?
It’s the 25-mile span of four-lane between Grand Island and Hastings, and it’s absolutely hideous.  In years gone by, we’ve broken a hitch on a big, sturdy trailer on that road, had blowouts, and made things come loose and go to pieces inside our campers. 
Larry just welded the hitch on this big trailer, and he says it won’t break until the End of the Earth.  I said we should check it anyway.  Of course, the trailer is also chained to the pickup, so if anything should happen to the hitch, it wouldn’t come completely loose.
We finally arrived in Hastings, and stopped to check the hitch.  Larry was right; the hitch had held tight, and showed not the faintest sign of stress.  We turned west and traveled through southern Nebraska on a smaller county road that wasn’t nearly so bumpy.
I like to travel.  It’s kind of an expensive thing to like, though... and we’ve done it a little too often lately.  At least I don’t have to buy film and pay to have it developed, like I did in the Good Ol’ Days! 
By a quarter ’til nine, Larry, who’d thought he was up for driving all the way to Colorado Springs that night, was munching on a mixed-chip combination of some sort, to stay awake.  The moon was low in the sky, looking like a Cheshire cat grin.  At 9:00 p.m., we drove through *Atlanta.  Population 131.
* Atlanta, Nebraska, that is.  😉
I hunted up motels in McCook, 65 miles to the west.  Using booking.com, I reserved a room online at the Economy Inn in McCook, Nebraska, and got it for only $64.99, including tax.  And they even have a big, free breakfast.
Here are pictures from that evening:  Heading Toward Colorado
As I write this letter, looking back at notes in my journal and in my email, my brain is getting a bit boggled, because... when I wrote emails to people, Outlook, my email program, put a timestamp on them according to which time zone we were in.  BUT! – now that we’ve returned home, it has changed all the Mountain Time to Central Time!  So if I’m not careful, I wind up writing that we went through some western Nebraska town an hour or more before we went through one farther to the east – and vice versa, when we were on the way home.
My computer thinks it’s sooo smart, timestamping things according to where I am right now, never mind the fact that I was somewhere else, in another time zone entirely, when the item in question was written.
If they can figure all this out, why can’t they also add the correct time zone?!  Why am I not a computer programmer???
(Answer:  Because ah don’t know nuttin’ ’bout ’puter programmin’, dat’s why.)
I remember when we were on our way home from Canada, coming down through northern Idaho, that the children were all delighted when we entered Pacific Time, and thought that surely we could just take a few extra minutes to pop over to the ocean and drive that beautiful road between the mountains and the sea that I’d told them about, having gone that route with my parents when I was little.  😊
They were quite surprised when I told them it was over 450 miles from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to Bellingham, Washington. 
We got up very early the next morning, got all dolled up, and headed to the breakfast nook.  “Reckon we can eat enough to keep us full until suppertime?” I asked Larry.
“You can always carry some out with you!” suggested a friend.
“Yeah, oh boy!” I replied.  “Scrambled eggs in my pocket, a bagel in one sock, French toast (complete with syrup) in the other.  Mmmmm, mmmmm.”  😆
Breakfast over, we loaded the pickup.  I wonder if all the other guests appreciated Larry rumbling his pickup with the big Cummins motor up to our door, so we could load up?  😲
We were on the road a few minutes before the sun came up.  Larry hoped to get to Dove Creek by early evening.  But it was still 691 miles.  That’s 11 hours away – if one could average 62.81 mph.  Apparently, neither Android Mileage Log Tracker nor Rand McNally Mileage Calculator understands anything at all about mountain travels.
A quilting friend who lives in middle western Colorado, and who would like us to come visit her, wrote, “Am I gonna have to find Larry something to buy on the western slope?”
Hee hee  When we went to Florida, Larry, not wanting the trip to be a total bust, got himself busy on Craigslist whilst in Daytona Beach, and happily found himself a winch down near Ft. Pierce State Park.  It barely fit in the Jeep amongst all our other stuff. but, oh, we were happy!  😆
At 8:55 a.m., we went through Benkelman, in southwest Nebraska.  By a quarter after nine, we were in Wray, Colorado, the second little town over the state line.  Thirty minutes later, we drove past the Yuma Feedlot – one of Colorado’s gigantic cattle yards.  We’d known it was coming, for miles.  😜
In Yuma, Larry put some thick gooey stuff into the transfer case; the seal was leaking slightly.  It didn’t do the trick, but at least the leak never worsened.
By 10:40 a.m., we were on the side of the road south of Yuma in a turnout by somebody’s mailbox.  Something had gone wrong with the front driveshaft.  Larry began putting on overalls in preparation to scrambling under the truck.
He’d brought insulated overalls, and had to wear a jacket with them so as not to get his shirt dirty, and it was 68° that morning.  On our last trip, he brought his lightweight summer coveralls, and it snowed like everything, and the wind was sometimes blowing at 60 mph.
It turned out, the constant velocity joint in the front driveshaft had gone kaput.  Larry, after shinnying under the truck, removed the front driveshaft, and after a delay of only about 15 minutes, we were on our way again.  We would just have rear-wheel-drive from then on.  If it looked like we might need four-wheel-drive for some reason, we would fix it then.
On the plus side, we would now get slightly better fuel mileage. 
Larry doesn’t like constant velocity joints.  He replaces them with regular U joints anytime they go bad.
“This evidently wasn’t too serious of a malfunction,” I told some of the kids; “Daddy is already singing again.  It’s Put Another Log on the Fire, but... it’s a song, nonetheless!  😄
Amy asked if it was windy where we were, as wind was blowing over 40 mph at home.
“No, not windy,” I told her.  “Unless I stick my head out the window at 65 mph.
Several friends and family members worried about the lack of a front driveshaft, and were afraid we wouldn’t be able to get one, should we need it, in western Colorado.
I reassured them, “I think we know where every Napa and O’Reilly’s store is, all over Colorado!  The thing is, we don’t need it if we don’t need four-wheel-drive... and if we do, there are places to get it (Montrose, Ridgway, Telluride, Dolores...).  The weather is supposed to be fine.  We just checked our mileage, and sure enough, we’re getting more miles to the gallon.  I’d hate to buy an unnecessary driveshaft, and then not have enough money for fuel!”
It was a pretty day that day, and we made fairly good time.  By 4:00 p.m., we reached Ordway, which is 52 miles east of Pueblo.  There were still 378 miles to Dove Creek.  My mileage chart announced that we’d make it in 6 hours and 47 minutes.  It doesn’t have a clue about Monarch Pass and a few other passes on the way. 
One of our first glimpses of the mountains included a herd of mule deer leaping across the road at the top of a hill, silhouetting themselves against the late afternoon sky.  I captured several photos of the event.  Some were blurry (bouncy road, jouncy pickup, or maybe vice versa), but a few were pretty good. 
By the time we went through Pueblo, the sun was low in the sky. 
I made a reservation at the Silver Ridge Lodge in Salida.  Too bad that meant we’d be driving through the canyon west of Cañon City in the dark!  Camera in hand... but I couldn’t take pictures.  Boo-hoo. 
We’d brought along some food, and I fixed supper in our motel rooms the first two evenings.  Sort of a funny menu, but it was good, and filling, and we liked it just fine.  Plus, it was free.  Supper #1:  beets, sweet potatoes, ciabatta rolls (baked right before we left home Thursday) with peanut butter and blackberry jelly, pears, yogurt, and pear nectar to drink.  Supper #2:  pickled beets (yeah, I know; heavy on the beets – but that’s what was in the cupboard), chicken noodle soup, club crackers and pretzel flip crackers (my favorite), more ciabatta rolls with peanut butter and jelly, apples, V8 cocktail juice, and applesauce.
Each night at our motels, we put those reusable ice cube thingamajiggers – they look like big bubble wrap, but the bubbles are filled with something that freezes and stays frozen most of the day – into the rooms’ little freezers, and the next morning, we stuck it back in our cooler, and thus kept applesauce, yogurt, jelly, and V8 cocktail juice cold all day.
Here are the day’s pictures:  From McCook, Nebraska, to Salida, Colorado
Saturday, we got another early start after eating in the breakfast nook of the pretty Silver Ridge Lodge.  They had coffee... fresh-squeezed orange juice... bagels of various flavors... apple cinnamon oatmeal... cinnamon rolls... oranges... yogurt...
Our spacious room had a big front window – and also a large back window that looked out over a beautiful valley, mountains in the background, and there was a smaller window in the bathroom, too.  I like windows. 
We pulled out of Salida, and were soon heading up, up, toward Monarch Pass.  It was a beautiful, blue, sunshiny day. 
We saw a sobering sight at the bottom of the pass, on the east:  A semi-truck, having come from the west, was parked on the side of the road.  A bunch of the tires were blown out, having burned, and the flames had caught part of the cab and the blue vinyl covering for the framed flatbed on fire.
Amazing that the driver had been able to stop his truck without wrecking, as that’s one mighty steep grade, and his brakes were on their very last squeak.  We’ve seen plenty of trucks that weren’t so fortunate, over some of those mountain passes.
We stopped at the gift shop at the top of Monarch Pass, and got a sweatshirt and a T-shirt for Larry’s brother Kenny, who just had his 56th birthday.  I found a soft hand-knitted headband with a knitted flower on it – in bright fuchsia, perfectly matching my bright fuchsia hiking shoes that Larry got me a couple of years ago.  I already have fuchsia gloves... now I need a fuchsia scarf... sweater...
Shortly after noon, we drove past the Blue Mesa Reservoir.  It was so beautiful... and the day was lovely with blue skies... blue water... the countryside all red and gold and green from various yucca plants, yews, and red sumac.  And for a bright, sparkling counterpoint, there was a lot of snow on the mountains.
Soon we could see the Uncompahgre Plateau up ahead, with a deep valley between us and the plateau.  Ranches dot the valley.  I like the ones where the house and barn are made entirely of big logs, sometimes with a stone foundation. 
On we went toward the San Juans, the ‘Swiss Alps of America’.  They are so beautiful, particularly with snow glistening in the sunlight.  On the east side of the range runs ‘The Million Dollar Highway’.  On the west?  ‘The Last Dollar Road.’ 
By 3:00 p.m., we were 60 miles from Dove Creek, driving way up high beside a deep canyon.  My map wouldn’t load, as we were out of cell phone range (and thus, no Internet), so I didn’t know the name of the canyon, or of the snowy mountain range we were heading toward, but it sure was beautiful.
Hmmm... I just looked on Google Earth, and I see the canyon stretches on for miles, and there are many side canyons with their own names, and as the main canyon curves along beside the various rivers and streams, its name changes, too.  Just listen to these names:  Dolores Canyon, Disappointment Valley, Blue Canyon, Nicholas Wash, Joe Davis Canyon, Morrison Canyon, Bush Canyon, Hanks Pocket, Corral Draw...
The man who sold us the tractor had gone with his wife to California over the Thanksgiving holiday.  We were to call a friend of his who lives in Dove Creek, and he would lead us to the man’s house, way out in the boonies.
However, Larry’s GPS found itself a signal just before we got to the gravel road we were supposed to turn on.  Larry turned... stopped... and called the man’s friend, who said he would meet us at the house.  Larry told him exactly where we were.  I heard him me very own self.
But the friend went to the tiny town to the north that we had already come through, and wandered around a bit, looking for us.  There isn’t much town in which to wander (population is only 177), so he soon headed back south.  By the time he came bumping up the man’s drive, Larry already had the tractor loaded and chained down, and I had made friends with the people’s two cats.  They meowed and purred and rubbed their heads on my hands and ankles and kneecaps, and begged for food and asked to get in the doors of the house.  When I walked around taking pictures of this and that, the smaller one followed me everywhere I went.
When Larry came close, they looked nervous, so he stopped walking towards them, talked to them, and held out a hand.  Before long, they were letting him pet them, too.
The man climbed out of his car, greeted us, and asked me, “Have you seen the cats?” and when I said I had, he informed me, “They won’t let you pet them.” 
He barely got that out of his mouth before one of them hurried over to wind her way around my legs.  I petted her.  She purred.
“Well, I’ll be!” exclaimed the man.  “I’ve known them for a good five years, and they won’t let me pet them!”  Then, “The other one isn’t as friendly as this one.”
The ‘other one’ then strolled over in a dignified manner, and proceeded to prove him wrong.
“You stinker!” the man remarked to the cat.  (At least, I think he was addressing the cat.)  “Well, whatever you do,” he told me, “don’t touch his tail.”
I grinned.  “Too late.  I already have.”
He looked surprised.  “And did he gitcha?” (southern Coloradoanese for ‘gitchoo’)
“No, he just purred,” I replied, and gave him a demonstration.  The cat played his role accommodatingly.
Most cats do like their tails petted, so long as they haven’t been mistreated already, and so long as they know they can trust you.
“Well, they like women, but not men,” the man decided.
The cats, who obviously understood English and took wicked delight in negating everything the man said, immediately frolicked together to Larry’s booted ankles and demanded that he pet them.
I asked the man who fed the cats when the people were gone, and said that I’d noticed that their bowl was empty, and they were begging for food. 
He shrugged carelessly.  “Oh, now and then they ask me to.”  But he didn’t seem inclined to do it at the moment.
When I fretted about it later, Larry assured me that there were plenty of mice for them to eat.  Bah, humbug.  Those cats weren’t begging me to put mice in their bowl.  Some cats have life more difficult than others, that’s a fact.  😟
After a bit of friendly chatter, during which we determined that the man’s mother had not washed his mouth out with soap nearly often enough (some people absolutely cannot talk without taking the Lord’s name in vain, over and over and over again), the man showed us inside his friend’s shop, where together they rebuild old cars and make hotrods out of them. 
Then he wished us farewell and safe travels, and we drove into Dove Creek to fuel the pickup.  Soon we were off to Cortez, where we would spend the night.  The sun was already dropping below the plateau to the west, and we certainly didn’t want to head over Wolf Creek Pass in the dark, towing a tractor that weighs 6,500-7,000 pounds, on a trailer that weighs a good 3,000 pounds.  At least the trailer has new brakes – you’ll recall Larry replaced them on the trip to Missouri/Kansas when we picked up the scissor lift.
The sunset was all gold and scarlet and orange, and the sky above was pink and light aqua blue, while farther to the east, there were bands of teal and turquoise, and finally, cadet blue.  Spectacular, it really was.
We got a very nice room at the Super 8 in Cortez for only $53.45.   Our free breakfast the next morning included Belgian waffles, and plenty of other things.  Yummy. 
And then we were heading for Wolf Creek Pass, first stopping to fill a trailer tire that seemed to have a slow leak.  It was 28° that morning.
We made it over Wolf Creek Pass with only two truck fires.  😲
First, on the way up the western incline, the motor heated up some insulation against the engine wall and caught it on fire.  Fortunately, we were watching the thermostat, and, though it wasn’t dangerously hot (or so we thought), we decided to stop at the top and let it cool down a bit.  When we got stopped, we spotted what we thought was steam coming out from under the hood.  When it went on for another half a minute, Larry decided he’d better check – and found the insulation on fire.
That was smoke, not steam.  He sloshed a bit of water on it, and put it out.
Then he ripped out all the old and burnt insulation – still smoldering – so that wouldn’t happen again.
Up there on the top of the pass was a man with three young kids.  They donned snow suits, and headed into the sloped snowfield with their toboggan.  Someone had earlier made a big snowman, and even bedecked it with a scarf and hat.
The man came to see if we were having trouble, and if we needed help.  By then, things were under control (or so we thought), so Larry thanked him, told him what had happened, and said everything was okay.
We appreciate people like that.
We headed down the eastern slope.  Larry shifted down, but we weren’t in four-low, and the engine wasn’t holding the vehicle with its heavily-laden trailer back enough to avoid using the brakes.  Larry used them as sparingly as possible until we got to a turnout, where he intended to put it in four-low.  But that wasn’t sparingly enough.
As soon as we were stopped, I smelled brakes, Larry saw smoke coming from the rear, and we hopped out to take a look.  He checked the brake drums... they seemed to be okay... but it kept smoking. 
“Are you sure it’s not on fire?” I asked.
Larry leaned down and peered under again – and exclaimed, “It is!”
He dashed to grab the water jug.  I dashed to grab things of import out of the cab.
Larry scrambled underneath the truck, and tossed the water on the flames.  It went out.
It wasn’t the brakes themselves on fire, it was the shield around the brake drum, which was covered with dirt and oil.  He cleaned it off so it wouldn’t happen again.
He checked the brakes; they were still okay.  They’re nearly new.  After a few minutes to make sure the fire was really out and everything was still in working order, Larry helped me put computer, camera bag, purse, tablet, and coat back into the pickup, and we climbed back in to give this mountain pass another try.
This time, with the truck in four-low, we crept along on the shoulder, hazard lights blinking, going steeply downhill ... until eventually we got to the bottom of the pass and were safely in South Fork.  Can you tell we’re hugging the shoulder here?
Whew.  I don’t like that much excitement.  It made my hands cramp somethin’ fierce.
We stopped at a Wal-Mart in Alamosa and bought a couple of gallons of water and a brand-spankin’-new fire ex-quing-disher (as Dorcas used to say).  We got it out of the box and put it under Larry’s seat where it’ll be easy to grab if we ever need it.
The above were my ideas, not Larry’s (though he didn’t disagree).  He, being the eternal optimist, never imagines anything bad can possibly happen.  I, being a realist, imagine it can, and, most likely, will, given probable circumstance.  (And we always give our equipment ‘probable circumstance’.  heh)  (Plus, Murphy rides with us, and his law prevails.)
Leaving Alamosa, we headed toward Blanca.  Immediately to our north we could see the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  Just east of the Sand Dunes rises the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, with Blanca Peak as its crowning summit.  Blanca Peak is the fourth highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the State of Colorado, with an elevation of 14,344 feet.  Its prominence (how much it rises from the valley floor) is 5,325 feet, making it quite impressive indeed.
The only pass after Wolf Creek was La Veta, and it wasn’t too bad. 
We ate at Subway in Walsenburg, and a woman in the line ahead of us gave us a coupon, which saved us about $8.00.  We only paid $11 for two totally stuffed 6” chicken/bacon/ranch sandwiches, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, four cookies, and two tall glasses of iced tea, which we both refilled once.
After leaving Walsenburg, we drove to La Junta, where I had booked a room at the Stagecoach Motel.  It was a really nice room, even nicer than advertised, with a king-sized bed, a little kitchenette, and free breakfast in the morning.  Price including tax:  $64.61.  Not bad.  This booking online has saved us quite a lot of money, and all of the rooms we stayed in were quite nice.
However... the Super 8 motel room where we stayed in Cortez was built by the Harlem Globe Trotters.
Don’t get me wrong; it was a nice room.  But...
I am 5’ 2”.  The peephole on the door was a good foot above my head.  Now, think about that.  If they’d put the peephole down where I could look out it, tall people would also be able to use it, because they can bend down.  But I couldn’t so much as get a glimpse through it, even by hopping up and down with all my might and main! 
The towel bars were up so high – way above my head – that every time I reached for a towel, the water on my hands ran all the way down my arms.  The hook on the back of the bathroom door was right at the very, very top edge of the door.  Now, that was just dumb.  Because... even if you could actually hang anything on that hook, it would then prevent the door from going closed!  Duh.
One more oddity:  the coat hanger was on the very opposite corner of the room from the door, for some unfathomable reason.  And it, too, was hung so high on the wall, that I could barely reach the hangers.  The final straw was that those hangers would not come loose from the hooks that held them on the rod, like most motel hangers do.  Consequently, there was no possible way I could hang anything on them.  At least, not without standing on my own suitcase, there wasn’t.
I told Larry, “Since I can’t see out the peephole, if anybody knocks on the door, I’ll just fling it open and box him in the nose first, and ask questions later.  The axe murderers look for the short people first, after all! – but they don’t expect them to be fist-throwing li’l ol’ grannies.” 
I’ve had some fun putting my camera – on wide angle – up to the keyhole when people are walking by, and taking a few shots.  Talk about the ol’ fisheye effect! 
I’m not a nervous sort.  Fact is, everywhere we go, we bump into nice people, mostly. 
At that same Motel for Tall People, there was a young man of indeterminate heritage trotting the halls, speaking an Eastern language into his phone... and we kept winding up behind him, as we carried in our luggage.  He invariably let doors – whether outer doors or inner doors – slam shut right in our faces.
As we headed for the outer door from our pickup with yet another load of stuff, the man strolled around the corner of the motel, unlocked the door with his card, opened it, and went through.  We scampered forward to try to get in before the door went shut, but.... CRASH!  It was spring-loaded, and shut in our faces.  Again. 
“I told you to trip him, the next time you saw him!” I said to Larry, and laughed – right when the door opened, and the kid’s friend or brother held it for us, apologizing for the oaf.  I suspect he heard me, judging by the way he was grinning at me.
Somebody brought their banshees to the motel that night, and they spent an hour or more racing madly up and down the hallways, screaming bloody murder.  They started up again at sunrise.  Fortunately, banshees must need to sleep, and they somehow went to sleep about five minutes before we did, and got up about five minutes after we got up.  I’ll betcha other guests who were trying to sleep were unimpressed, though.
We traveled with up to nine kiddos, time and again... and sometimes we stayed in motels.  Guests were never the wiser, unless they actually saw us, because the children were all quiet as little church mice (save for those times when Hester and Lydia’s funnybones got the better of them, and they went to giggling their cute little heads off, and their mother hissed, “Hush!  Someone might be sleeping!”).
The pickup was working fine, but by the time we got to La Junta, it was dark.  We had a big load, and there were no shoulders on that road.  Made me noivous. 
I’m telling you, traveling by Jeep Commander is infinitely more relaxing!
But... in spite of the troubles, it had been a beautiful, sunshiny day, with just enough thin puffs of clouds in the sky to keep my photos interesting.  That’s important, you know.  It got up to 60°, and felt warmer.
I edited a few pictures before I hit the hay that night... a very few.  I take pictures a whole lot faster than I can edit them.
A friend who lives in Colorado wrote to me, “As a side note, Wolf Creek pass is exciting in a passenger car on a sunny day.  I strongly dislike that pass.  But it does make Monarch look easy!”
We’ve been over the pass in multiple types of vehicles, once towing a fifth-wheel camper, sometimes with a pickup camper on, once in a Peugeot station wagon.  And there were a few times with my parents when I was little.  I never recall the journeys of my childhood being hair-raising – and that was even on the old road!
My sister, being 20 years older than me, recalls family trips that were less than relaxing, with my father doing all kinds of exciting things, such as driving his Jeep Willys up the side of a mountain in Montana. 
“I married John H.,” my sister informed me, “because I’d had enough of scary, impulsive things, and he’s careful and cautious.”
“Well,” I retorted to my sister, “by the time I came along, Daddy was careful and cautious, and I missed out on all the fun stuff --- so I married Larry!”
And then, of course, we laughed like idiots.
We were later than we would’ve liked the next morning, leaving La Junta.  The proprietor was a friendly Greek man, and we got stuck in the breakfast nook for a while.  Larry is friendly, too, you see.  I’m more inclined, when I’m in a hurry, to smile politely and run for my life – in the middle of a sentence, if need be.  But I was penned in the corner! 
Larry decided to change the leaking tire on the trailer before rather than after it blew.  He did it in the spacious motel parking lot before we left.  Better than alongside a shoulderless road somewhere.  The tire was wearing oddly, and in danger of blowing out.  He thinks the axle is bent a little.  He tightened up the bearings, and hoped that would suffice until we got home.
I’m thankful that Larry knows what to do in just about any given instance, and without much fanfare, just does it.
Once upon a time, when Lydia was two years old, and we were stranded atop a mountain in Montana with a broken fan belt, she said, “My Daddy can fix anything.”  She made that statement calmly but emphatically, from her perch in her car seat, while coloring in her little coloring book.
It was 78° at 11:30 a.m. in Lamar, and by the time it was noon, the temperature had risen to 80°.
By 2:00 p.m., we’d reached the small village of Sheridan Lake, population 86.  The lake for which it is named is what we call a ‘pond’, and it’s alkaline, with the accompanying snowy white shores. 
There are a few doublewides and fabricated homes strewn about willy-nilly – and what looks like a couple hundred big shiny silver silos sparkling and shining in the sunlight, and a few tall white elevators.  Plus, there was one convenience store, which we were happy to see.
We stopped and went in.
It was fairly large, and stocked like a small grocery store.  There was a little kitchen where they cooked pizza, spicy breaded chicken, and .. ?  At the back was a room with tables and chairs where people could eat the snacks they’d purchased. 
But the truly unusual thing about this Store out in the Sticks was the floor:  it was made of that textured rubbery stuff like you can get for the bottom of a shower.
It covered the entire floor of every room in the store, from wall to wall.  And it was bright yellow.
But it wasn’t affixed to the floor!  There were lumps and bumps and rises all over the place.  So Larry and I walked in – and then proceeded to trip and stagger our way through the store, all the way to the back, where Larry got some chicken (I called it spicy breaded Styrofoam) and I got a bottle of orange juice.  Then we floundered and tripped our way back to the checkout stand, greeted and paid the friendly clerk, stumbled and lurched our way to the door, and off we went again.  I think we doubtless looked exactly like drunken sailors.
Half an hour later, we approached Cheyenne Wells, population 842.  Practically a city!  It was 93 ½ miles to Wray, population 2,367 (practically a metropolis!), the last town in Colorado (other than Laird, population 47) before we would cross into Nebraska.
The previous day’s engine insulation fire had melted an air conditioner hose, and it was hot that day; so Larry snipped off the melted part, rerouted the hose, and clamped it back on.  We were back in air conditioning again.
Cheyenne Wells looked to consist mostly of silos and elevators, too – and they must all be full, because operators are starting to make big piles of grain on the ground, and covering them with huge white tarps.  It was easy to understand where all the grain came from, because for hundreds of miles, we’d passed through flatland farming, and most of the harvest is over.
Tired of riding, we stopped in Burlington and walked around a park for a little while.  It was a commemorative park with lots of plaques along the walkway telling the history of the place.  The playground equipment was rocket-themed, because one of the astronauts came from that town.
“At least the pickup didn’t really get too hot,” Larry remarked offhandedly as we strode along.  “Nothing actually got ruined.”
I stopped walking and stared at him.  “Let’s be clear, here,” I retorted.  “When flames are shooting out of the engine... and when flames are shooting out from the brake shield...  that’s too hot.”
He laughed.
He laughed.
Another thing that’s too hot is a long-sleeved sweater on an 80° day.  When we got back into the pickup, I pulled up Google maps, zoomed in on Burlington, typed ‘Thrift Store’, and found one not more than half a dozen blocks away.  It was a fairly large store for such a small town, but... they’d put away all their summer things!  I found only two short-sleeved sweaters in that entire store.  I got them.  Paid $7.00 for both.
Already, the sun was low in the sky, and it was only 3:45 p.m. 
It was about a quarter ’til eight when we got to McCook.  We ate supper at the Coppersmith Steakhouse.  We didn’t know until we walked in that there was a lounge in a room at the opposite side of the building.  One guy in there had been having Happy Hour too long.  Fortunately, he was a happy drunk.  Every couple of minutes, he laughed loud and long.  And even more fortunately, he took his departure about the time our food arrived. 
What is there about being drunk that makes an idget switch around the words ‘charming’ and ‘obnoxious’?
Anyway, he went away, and we enjoyed our meal.  I got a chicken fajita salad (it was humongous!), and Larry had roast beef and mashed potatoes on a hoagie roll. 
Then we shared a piping hot peach cobbler with maple nut(?) ice cream on top.  They put it in a long banana-boat-shaped dish with a square plate underneath and spoons in each end.  We tried to be careful that we didn’t bump heads...  but sometimes, if you really want your fair share, you just have to throw all caution to the winds.  😂
When the meal was over, it was 10 ’til 9, and about 220 miles home.  Larry thought he could make it easily.  That was because he was full, happy, and wide awake.  That latter bit doesn’t always last very long.  😏
A friend, upon hearing of our excitement on Wolf Creek Pass, wrote to ask, “Do they have run offs (that’s not what they call them, but can’t remember what they are, lol) where a truck can run off the highway and up a hill to get the truck stopped?”
Yep.  Runaway truck ramps.  When I was little, traveling with my parents, we saw a truck that had had to take the runaway ramp.  It had just happened, and smoke was rolling out from the brakes.  We’d been smelling his brakes for the last thirty minutes, and then we started seeing strange skid marks on the curves, and Daddy said very quietly, “If he doesn’t get to that runaway ramp soon, he’ll be in the canyon.” 
We were all holding our breath and praying for the poor trucker, whoever he was.  You can’t imagine our relief when we found him on that sandy ramp, buried beyond the hubs half-way up the hill.  We stopped to talk to him, to make sure he was all right.  He was just climbing out of his truck, and he was shaking awfully, and could hardly talk.  Daddy took his arm and talked to him for a while, and he calmed down.  My father had a way about him.
Midnight-thirty found us at Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Grand Island.  Larry checked the oil, and added some. 
The new tire he put on the trailer this morning was also wearing oddly.  The wheel is noticeably out of alignment with the other wheels (it’s a triple axle) (Mr. Gates [or maybe Al Gore] thinks I should change the word ‘axle’ to ‘axel’ when it comes after the word ‘triple’, since he evidently knows all sorts of things about skating maneuvers, but nothing about trailers with three axles).
When one is worried about one’s tires and one’s heavily-laden trailer, one notices every bump.  And believe me, there are a lot of bumps between Dove Creek and Columbus.  Ugh, I hate big, bad bumps! – they can cause a tire to blow out, or something to come loose. 
But... so far, so good.  We got some Schwan’s soft-serve chocolate chip mint ice cream at Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Grand Island.  Mmmmm...  I can’t eat much; ice cream makes my stomach hurt.  Besides, it was keeping Larry awake; so I’ll let him have my share.
We got home at a quarter ’til two, tired, but safe and sound.  And, as a final note, there were no blizzards.


,,,>^..^<,,,       Sarah Lynn       ,,,>^..^<,,,


P.S.:  As I reread this letter, I thought, Hmmm, it sounds like we said ‘There, there,’ then just went away and left that trucker who’d gone up the runaway ramp to his own devices.  Sort of like the verse that admonishes those who tell poor people, “Depart in peace!  Be ye warmed and filled!” – ‘notwithstanding they gave them not those things which were needful’. 
Nice words, no action.
So I’ll finish the story:  Since it was before the days of cell phones, Daddy offered to take the man to the closest place where he could get help, but the man had already called from one of those phones they put beside the road near the runaway truck ramps, and a wrecker was on the way.  In fact, if I remember correctly, I think we may have waited until the wrecker arrived before we left. 

There.  And that’s The Rest of the Story.


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